The Plague Star – Disease

The Last major theme that I hadn’t addressed in the Pregen Character sheets was disease. Throughout the adventure, infections of all types worked their way into the characters via interaction with gross, slimy, weird stuff and a multitude of polluted breathing environments. I wanted to give this element more narrative weight, though, and decided that I needed to develop additional mechanics to make this really stick. Hence, I developed disease cards. These were given out during specific failures, and ala cart with Threat. Diseases were also “advanced” with an additional card of the same type on a minor amount of Threat. A few players in my games begged their companions at the end – please kill me.

The disease cards come in four types, the variety there to keep things interesting. Each type has different effects, but all of the same general mechanics effect: add Setback, remove Boost, downgrade skills, upgrade difficulty. All disease also either reduce Soak, spread, or deal Wounds; further emphasizing the high lethality I was aiming for.